Silicon Valley Moms Blog

Food Fight

Dinner is the only meal in which I require everyone to sit down at the table.  It’s an important tradition from my childhood.  As a busy working mom, dinnertime is the time to reconnect with my family.  We talk about our day, about current events, about really anything.  When I get home from a day at the office, I quickly get a wholesome meal on the table so that we can spend time as together as a family.

Yet dinnertime at my house is rapidly reaching Code Red status.  What was once a pleasant meal has turned into a power struggle of epic porportions.  No, my son isn’t refusing to eat dinner.  No, he isn’t exihibiting any bad manners.  In fact, my son will eat everything you put on his plate.

It takes him over 90 minutes to finish.  The battle I face every night is to get my son stay focused to eat dinner in a reasonable amount of time.   

My cooking "show" with KTEH

I love to cook and avidly tear out recipes from Sunset and Real Simple magazines which (then lay in dusty folders hoping one day to get made.) The reality is that cooking usually is what I can get on the table in 15 minutes or less.

So when KTEH, the local Silicon Valley/San Jose public TV station, approached me to make a video for their series and fundraiser, "Cooks With Garlic", I wanted to show a dish that reflects the reality of cooking in a busy a household.

Below is a video of me and my kids making "Pasta Mashup", which I typically make now in 10 minutes flat. (The recipe itself is available on my personal site, Midnight Musings.)

I'd love to know how other SVMoms approach cooking -- what are your favorite shortcuts and cheats? And if you have any favorite garlic recipes, submit them to be included in KTEH's new cookbook! But you'll have to hurry - deadline is Saturday, November 15th!

The Lunch Box Police

Do educators have a right to dictate what can and cannot be put in a child’s school lunchbox? This is the issue I'm facing head-on at the moment and the only answer I keep coming up with is a resounding “NO!”

I realize that more and more schools now have “peanut-free zones” or ban nut products altogether to keep the school environment safe for the increasing number of children with allergies. That’s not what I’m talking about here.

What I’m talking about is having school lunch supervisors and teachers regularly strolling around at lunchtime looking into kids’ lunchboxes. At our school they hand out raffle tickets to kids with healthy lunches, and the winner of the raffle gets a big basket of fruit as a prize at the end of the month. Now on its own this could be a good thing (aside from the gross invasion of privacy and the fact that giving more fruit to the kids with healthy lunches is a bit like preaching to the choir, no?), but when it’s accompanied by stern looks, wagging fingers, and repeated messages like “we should only have one treat at lunch” and “no chocolate at lunchtime” it is bordering on harassment.

Fine Dining With the Under Six Set

After splitting him time between San Francisco and New York, my husband has become a food snob.  The kind who studies menus before he dines somewhere, always know of the newest, hottest restaurant and wouldn't be caught dead in The Olive Garden.   That's all well and good when it's just the two of us or we are meeting some friends for dinner.  I always let him pick the restaurant.

But once in a while I don't feel like cooking or ordering in from our usual choices, we can't get a sitter and I want to eat out.  When our twins were babies, we took them to some nice restaurants and it worked out fine for the most part.  If one of them had a crying fit, we'd take turns walking them up and down the sidewalk until they calmed down.  They were bottle fed, so we quickly mastered the art of giving a baby a bottle while sipping wine and taking bites of seafood risotto.  We had some nice meals with our infants in tow.

Food - The Tiebreaker

When it rains, it pours. Remember the old saying? This is never so true when it comes to social events. We may go for months with open weekends (well, "open" meaning the few hours here and there between soccer class, swim lessons and tennis practice) and BAM! EVERYone wants to have a party on the same night.

Typically, we'll try to fit it all in...being early to one so we could leave early and late to another to catch the end. Sometimes, though, that's not possible and a choice has to be made. What to do? What to do? Well, all other things being equal (e.g., importance of event, good company, physically nearby), the one criteria that always comes up - FOOD! What yummy dishes will we have to look forward to?

New meaning to the word "Homecoming"

When I walked in the door after a 10-day trip away from my family, the first thing my spouse said to me after a kiss hello was “We’re out of bread.”

With a grocery store within walking distance of our house, a fully stocked fridge upon my departure, and ten days away from my family, really?  That’s the first thing you want to say?  How about a “honey, how was your trip?” or “Supplies are low, but I’ll run up to store tonight for you – you’ve been traveling for 15 hours.”

I know being the parent who gets left behind while the other spouse is traveling, isn’t easy.  It’s hard to be the one that has to hold down the fort.  But good grief is it really that hard to go to the store to pick up a few items?!?

A taste of Sonoma (with kids)

Whenever my husband's parents fly over from England, we like to spend the weekends taking them to places within a day's drive from Palo Alto, like Carmel, Monterey, Muir Woods, Ano Nuevo and so on.  One place that none of us had never been to was Sonoma County, so this year we decided that Sonoma was a must.  The one small problem -- actually, three -- my kids.  Like red wine and fish, the wine country and kids aren't generally known to go well together.   As I saw it, we had three options:

Option 1:  Leave the kids with the grandparents and spend a couples-only weekend in Sonoma, and deal with the nagging (and morbid) feeling that this may be the only chance that my 75-year-old in-laws will ever get to see Sonoma;

Option 2:  Take the whole kit and caboodle (parents, grandparents, kids) to Sonoma, and avoid the issue of whiny, nagging kids by spending the day at guaranteed kid-friendly Sonoma attractions like Traintown and Safari West;

Option 3:  Take the whole kit and caboodle to Sonoma, and find places to visit that cater to adults but welcome young children -- not sure if that's possible but let's get on the internet and find out.

We decided to save Options 1 and 2 for another time, and go for Option 3.  And God Bless the Internet;

Did You Know That Onions Grow in the Dark?

I didn't know that onions grew in the dark until I pulled one out of my closet pantry. I was wondering why my closet was smelling so bad every time I went in to grab TJ a snack. Way down low, in the back corner where it's dark, something was growing wild and free.

When I first caught a pungent whiff of stinky onions, I realized, "Shoot! We didn't finish off the 10 lbs of red onions from Costco in time. Now, they're rotting! Disguuussting!" I quickly held my breath, yanked the sack of remaining offending suckers and made a mental note to self. Next time, put half of the onions in the fridge.  Start with the ones in the closet and you'll be fine.

My husband has constantly berated me for buying garlic and onions in bulk when there are only the three of us. But hey, I'm Chinese. I practically throw bulbs of garlic and onions into my stir fry. And I swear, there's gotta be some Italian in my ancestry, because I can't get enough of my pasta. Diced onions taste so good in sauces, whether red or white. And don't forget salads, too.

So, the first thing I did when I realized my onions were decomposing was quickly destroy the evidence and spray with Oust! "There!" I thought. "Hubby won't even know it ever happened." I breathed a sigh of relief, figuring I caught the stink in time.
 

Kate's Yearly Pillsbury Warning Letter for Peanut Allergics

The baking has started.  We invited a friend over on Saturday to play and I tossed out the casual "we're baking cookies, if you want to."  The kid jumped at it.  It's easy to forget how much little boys like to make cookies.  Correction: how much KIDS like to make cookies.  What fun!

Last year, in the middle of baking cookies, I got tired of using my Yuppie Martha Stewart sugar cookie dough, so I bought some at Safeway. And was shocked to see that some of the Pillsbury cookie dough contains peanuts. Let me repeat: Some of the store-bought sugar cookie dough contains peanuts.  It's not made on machinery that also touches peanuts. It contains genuine peanut flour.  Why?  who one earth knows.

If your child has a peanut allergy, this is a REMINDER. In case you have let down your guard, and in case you let simple logic direct you (e.g. “it’s a sugar cookie. Those contain butter or shortening/sugar/eggs  

Ssshhh, It's My Little Secret

Did you see Jessica Seinfeld on Oprah?  She has a new cookbook called Deceptively Delicious.  The book uses pureed fruits and veggies in the recipes to make them healthier and help get them into your children (and your husband).

Deceptively Delicious has all sorts of things I would never think of, including cauliflower in macaroni and cheese, and spinach in brownies. Jessica also shares tips on making healthy snacks and improving store-bought foods, as well as advice on creating a positive environment around the kitchen table.

Eat Local Challenge

From Guest Blogger Gudrun:

September 2007 is Eat Local Month, according to Locavores (and many other foodie sites), and the idea is simple. For one month, try to eat what is local in your area. The challenge can take on many aspects, I guess it depends on how intense you want to get, but I liked the first two suggestions of Katherine Gray at Dish To Dirt , namely:

1. Eat local whenever possible
2. If I cannot eat local, buy from a local company

In addition, I pledge to:

3. Preserve as much as I can
4. Limit driving, and work on integrating transportation alternatives into our lives
5. Start caring where things are made and see if I can find manufactured items 1) locally, 2) in

Got Bacteria?

Milk seems to be in the news lately.  Breast milk has finally been deemed a medical necessity by the TSA, which is a big sigh of relief for those moms of infants that travel and had to "dump" their milk.  The nutritional and health benefits of breast milk are undeniable... For the infants of moms who breastfeed them that is.

Then I read in yesterday's New York Times that drinking raw milk is a new fad, claiming that raw milk tastes better and has more nutritional value then pasteurized milk.  Not for baby cows but for human consumption?  Hmmm, lets see - should I (and my kids) risk potentially being exposed to disease-causing bacteria, to get what the raw milk fans say are beneficial bacteria, proteins and enzymes?  Some include raw milk as "real food".

Hello, did ya hear about the pasteurization, "the most successful public health endeavors of the 20th century"??? And what about Vitamin D, very little is found in raw milk. And good bacteria, well have ya heard of yogurt?   I may be a healthy food mama, but my unscientific opinion leads me to skip this raw milk trend. We will stick with the raw fruit and vegetables for now.

Ooops, I guess raw vegetables can also have bacteria........ I wish there was a way to pasteurize raw spinach.  All of this talk of bacteria is making frozen foods look really good to me.

Confessions of a Sugarholic and Where to Get a Fix

Sugar is my biggest weakness. Ever since I was a little kid, it has been a part of my family culture. Here's the short list: sugary cinnamon rolls at Grandma's for Thanksgiving dinner (not to mention the three kinds of pie), Oreos, Ho Ho's or Girl Scout cookies every day after school, frosting-loaded birthday cakes, candy canes at Christmas, chocolate Easter eggs, home-made ice cream in the summer, chocolate mint brownies and chocolate chip cookies (especially the dough) for any occasion we could find, sodas to go with our popcorn when watching basketball or movies on TV, and anything and everything at Halloween. It's amazing when I think about how much sugar I've probably consumed in my life. Hello, my name is Sarah and I'm a sugarholic.

Just when I thought I'd kicked the daily habit, a new store opened in Menlo Park: Sugar Shack. I was given ample warning because one of the owners, Suzi Tinsley, is a well-known member of the Junior League of Palo Alto/Mid-Peninsula and the buzz of the opening was passed along through League email lists. Immediately when I heard who was opening the store, I knew it would be a success. Suzi is one of those women who can do anything. She is probably the most popular League president in recent history, she has raised funds and participated in several local philanthropic organizations and also political causes and candidates, and did I mention she has seven children? She is always social and full of positive energy, friendly to everyone. Even if I dosed with sugar 3x/day I still could never find the energy she has naturally.

So Suzi and her friend, Beth Donnelly-Yancey, launched Sugar Shack in April right before Easter. The Almanac printed a well-written review by a thirteen year-old which captured its essence fairly well. The first time I went in, I thought the shop was all about non-chocolates, but today when I toured again, I was excited to see chocolate is well-represented. There's even an international section with some of my favorite Cadbury snacks. I love the colors of the store - bright pink & orange. And the bar at the back is super fun. They say it's a destination for kids - what about adults? I'd be ok sitting there drinking Orange Crush admiring the candy art for hours. Who needs to go home for dinner? Reese's Peanut Butter Cups have plenty of protein!

Jesting aside, I'm actually very reformed in terms of nutrition because I suffered from a variety of health problems over the past decade that necessitated some dietary changes. And I'm fully aware of the link between sugar and diabetes and the growing concerns about childhood obesity. That said, I went to a kids' nutrition workshop at DayOne on Friday where they advocated - rather than cutting sugar from kids' lives, teach about moderation. It's impossible to avoid processed sugars completely and let's face it, who really wants to? For the little ones, it's still safer to wait on sugar. My daughter's not yet two and she hasn't tried fruit juice yet, but I let her have a few bites of cake from time to time. The best thing to do, they said, is to provide the right example. Just when I was beginning to overcome my fear of the candy aisle at Safeway for myself, now I have to figure out how to introduce it to my daughter without the excess I had as a child.

The last candy store in my area resided in high rent downtown Palo Alto. It didn't have the variety of the Sugar Shack or the community feel. It only lasted a couple of years. I hope Sugar Shack stays a while. It's a great place to stop after (or before!) I pick my daughter up from school.

How I Deal with a Picky Kid, part II: What's on the Menu, tonight?

Our nightly dinner special is whatever I cook for N and me.  Well, let’s be honest - it’s what I want to eat.  Hey, I’m the chef so I get the decision, right?  Yet I feel very challenged to create something nice for the adults that I could also serve to my very picky kid.  I don't want to cook a separate meal but I also don’t want to deal with melt-down.

When we were eating dinner out a restaurant with some friends, it suddenly hit me.  Light bulb moment.  I would create my own menu-like attitude during meal time.  Since meal-time battles were often about control, I would surrender to my picky kid.  Well, surrender with a few limits.  I won't worry about whether or not D will eat my “daily special.”  D gets his own "menu" to select from. 

Once I know what I’m making for the adults, I can figure out what D will like, what he’ll refuse to touch, and where I can supplement. I decide what the choices are and D gets to make the decision. I always first offer our full meal, but make sure that I have an option for each item that may be questionable for D.

Waiter (that would be me): Welcome to Chez Robyn.  On the menu tonight we have savory chicken tikka masala served on a bed of jasmine rice.  Our vegetable is steamed asparagus.  Would you like to order that for dinner, sir?

Picky kid: No.  Yucky.

Waiter: No problem-o.  I can ask the chef to hold the tikka masala and have plain rice.

Picky kid: Plain rice.  Yeah

Waiter: Would you like the chicken rinsed (did I mention that he also is on an "Anything with a sauce" strike) or would you like cheese instead?

Picky kid:  Washed chicken.  No.  I want cheese.  No.  I want chicken.  No.  CHEESE.  NO NO NO.  I want both.  Can I have both, please?

Waiter: Sure. Chicken and a side of string cheese coming right up.  Lastly, we have asparagus.  Is that acceptable, sir?  Or would you like to exchange those for carrots?

Picky kid: Carrots!!

Waiter:  Great.  That’ll be plain rice with chicken, carrots, and a side of cheese.

Sometimes I feel like I’m reliving the Meg Ryan and the When Harry Met Sally scene of wanting everything “on the side.”  After 18 months of my toddler being on an "Anything that looks remotely like a green vegetable" strike, he ate a piece of broccoli last night!!  He picked it from the menu and ate it all. 

Now, on to making my "menu" for tonight.

How I Deal with a Picky Kid, part I: the lies

D is a picky kid.  It's genetic.  I was a picky kid.  My dad was a picky kid.  I remember having total anxiety over what was being made for dinner - would I like it, would I be forced to eat it, would I go hungry?  My parents were not consistent in dealing with my picky-habits, so I never really knew what was going to happen next.  There were times were I was sent to my room without dinner, times where my mom made me a PB&J instead, and there were even a few times when I was spanked for my disobedient (not eating) behavior. 

I didn't want to repeat any of those mistakes with my son.  So I came up with my own strategy: LYING THROUGH MY TEETH. 

When D only liked chicken, all meats were chicken.  Shrimp was chicken.  Steak was chicken.  Now D likes shrimp.  So salmon, scallops, and other seafood is called “shrimp.”  Once he has eaten the new food a few times (and likes it), I change the name back to its original.  You see the pattern.  Now rinse and repeat. 

Foods that are still in liar-liar land:

• Rice cakes are cookies.  Yummy yummy “BIG cookies” (I buy the caramel or sweet ones)
• Yogurt is melting “ice cream.  Hurry and eat it before it makes a mess!”
• Rye bread is “chocolate toast” (bet you never thought of that one!)
• Salmon is really “shrimp.”  Flat shrimp with no tail, in fact.
• Just Peas are “green cracker-balls.”  OK, so I was off my game that day. 

Yes, I am a big fat liar.  But my kid isn’t just eating cheese and Goldfish crackers for dinner. 

Eat Local Challenge

OK, I will admit that when it comes to food, I get stressed about prices, straying from what I know or being adventurous.  CityMama posted on her food blog about something called the Eat Local Challenge that she found in the San Francisco Chronicle.

There are some stipulations to the Challenge:

• The challenge is from April 23-29
• Eat only foods from within a 100-mile radius from where you live. This includes the ingredients that go into the food.   **It was also suggested, that you could define local as anything from your county to within the state or the United States.
• Spend about $10 per person per day.
• You can have some exemptions like coffee, tea, or salt, etc. that are part of your daily life but you can't find locally.

My first thought was, "You go with your bad self but I am so not down for this."  Stefania really highlighted farmer's markets and the fact that we live in California and have so many resources close to us. After reading the complete Challenge, I found that you can modify it a lot of ways.  After thinking about it some more I decided that I would try to do somethings to work towards the Challenge even though I am not ready to take on the full thing.  After all it is Earth Day so what better time to start right???

Here is what I have decided to do:

• Eat only local fruits and vegetables
• Anything else I can find to buy at the farmer's market to help with the eat local goal, do it!
• Use herbs from my own garden

I realize that these are very bare bones goals but it is a start.  I want to say that I decided not to do meat, fish, etc. because I just spent a night making food from Super Suppers so I am not going to double buy.  It doesn't make sense economically. 

I went to the farmer's market this morning to shop.  I got zucchini, tomatoes, asparagus and strawberries.  I also bought bread from a local bakery and cheese from a local guy.  I spent less than $20.  I would have bought raisins, oranges and lettuce but we just bought some at the store the other day.

I am not very earth friendly but I have been inspired by this challenge.  I hope during the next week to really work towards using local resources to feed my family.  It will mean reading more labels at stores and paying better attention but in the long run it is worth it.

What are you doing to help the earth?????

This was originally posted on Freitas Family

This is why I buy organic

Just 1.3 percent of imported fish, vegetables, fruit and other foods are inspected — yet those government inspections regularly reveal food unfit for human consumption.

Only 1.3 percent of the imports are inspected.  1.3 percent!  I can’t believe it.

Non-US farmers can (and do!) use pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and hormones that are banned in the United States.  About one-quarter of our fruit, both fresh and frozen, is imported. For tree nuts, it’s about half. And for fish and shellfish, more than two-thirds come from overseas. 

Whole Foods does its own testing on all of its produce and products.  If the test fails, WF does not purchase the products or fruit.  Suddenly, I don’t feel quite so bad paying double or triple for an organic apple at WF compared to a conventional one at Safeway. 

My recommendation: Even if you can’t afford organic, buy local.  Go to your weekly Farmer’s Market (there are over 70 each week in the Bay Area).  Buying organic at the Farmer’s Market can be significantly cheaper than buying it at the grocery store.

Food blogging

I’ve been reading a lot of food blogs lately, and thinking, hey, I manage to slam dinner on the table a majority of nights a week, I could be a food blogger.

So here’s my attempt, breaking all the SVMoms blog posting rules in the process. For one, we don’t typically post recipes, we don’t want to be a recipe swapping site. For another, we try to focus on our struggles, not our wins; face it, struggles are funnier. But my attempt to be a food blogger would end quickly if I wrote about the night of the upside-down lasagna. (If really want to know the details about that one, ask my kids. But really, I swear, the floor had been recently washed with vinegar and water, so it was nontoxic and relatively clean.)

Anyway, here’s my food-blog post. Let’s call it “Chicken-Spinach Enchiladas: An Adventure in Weeknight Cooking.”

A better kind of kitchen

Are you a working parent who has to slave in the office all day and come home to hungry, tired kids and not a clue what to prepare for dinner?  Or a stay-at-home parent who has to slave over house/errands/kids and wants to spend more time doing things with family, not for them?  Then, as Martha Stewart says, here's a Good Thing you should try: one of those meal preparation services sprouting up all over the country. 

xxxxx

I recently went to Sous Kitchen in San Carlos and assembled two 4-to-6-serving meals: Crispy Mustard Chicken and Mojito Chicken. I had a coupon for $10, so both dishes (at $30 each) cost me $50 total. They were delicious, and cheaper than takeout.  That's one aspect of parental guilt solved -- no need to settle for dinners from a box or a jar or a microwave, or the good old standby -- peanut butter sandwiches. Just fresh, real, tasty food that took me 10 minutes to assemble in their kitchen (versus an hour cooking at home plus more time cleaning up), ready and waiting in my freezer.

xxxxx

Their kitchen is a sight to behold -- immaculately clean, organized and spacious. High ceilings and a floor-to-ceiling window that lets in lots of natural light.  Gleaming stainless steel appliances everywhere. Shiny modern measuring spoons and cups. Clean, bare counters. Pre-sliced, defrosted meat waiting in the fridge. Ingredients neatly lined up at each preparation station.  No sound, other than the quiet hum of the subzero fridges and discreet murmurs of clients and staff.  No stress, not with the staff standing by, gently encouraging, ready to help, ready to whisk aside all the used bowls and spoons as soon as you're done with them. It's like having my own sous chef, prep crew and cleanup brigade.   No, it's a bit like a kitchen spa -- relaxing and soothing to the senses.  And all the while I'm doing something useful -- making a meal.  Ahhhhh, I could get used to this. 

xxxxx

My own kitchen feels so ORDINARY in comparison -- shiny vinyl tablecloths, crusty pans soaking in the sink, leftovers cooling on the (well-splattered) stove, tea stains on the countertops, papers everywhere, kids' artwork strung up with clothespins on the window, cereal crumbs under the table even at dinnertime, tacky white fridge cluttered with magnets and photos.  Nothing is color-coordinated except the .  I've made a stab at organizing things, but there just isn't enough cabinet space, so stuff spills out onto the countertops.  I blame the kids -- we have a whole drawer devoted to their toys.  The noise pollution -- creaking, whining dishwasher, humming, whining microwave, crying, whining kids -- is usually enough to make one want to hide.  And just one drudge-- me.  Makes me wish I had a kitchen like theirs, where making meals is a joy.

No, actually I'm glad I don't.  Let me rephrase that -- I'm glad that I get a chance to "have" a beautiful, immaculate kitchen over there and my own messy, cluttered kitchen over here. Because for every ten minutes I spend preparing meals in their beautiful, immaculate kitchen, I gain thirty minutes in my own messy, cluttered kitchen interacting with my messy, cluttered family.   Because spending time with them is even more of a joy.

A version of this post appears on Bonggamom's personal blog, How to be a BonggaMom.

Whole Grain Cocoa Puffs and other Unhappy Meals

As I was serving my kids Wild Puffs cereal this morning, I saw the New York Times article on "Unhappy Meals", How thirty years of nutritional science has made Americans sicker, fatter and less well nourished".  One of the sections mentioned:

"It's a lot easier to slap a health claim on a box of sugary cereal than a carrot, with the perverse result that the most healthful foods in the supermarket sit there quietly in the produce section, while a few isles over, the Cocoa Puffs are screaming about their whole-grain goodness".

I checked the Wild Puffs box and it is organic, has vitamins and the worst ingredient is sugar. But after seeing that Cocoa Puffs is screaming about whole grains, I decided to make a veggie omelet with some cantaloupe to serve them with their cereal, including some chopped carrots.

This article is another in a string of information being published on how the western diets are leading to higher rates of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity.  Some schools are including reports on body mass index scores on report cards.   All I can say is that I am completely confused. I get that my family should eat less processed foods, but then I read that the hormones in some simple chicken breasts can cause cancer. Whole grains are great for some but some (more then you think) are allergic to wheat gluten. So what should our kids eat? Anyone else struggling with this issue? The only foods I have not heard anything bad about is fruit, vegetables, beans, and brown rice. But ya can't live on that alone!

 

Wine for Mommies

When we do get to opportunity to have guests over or go to friends houses, it is important to me to have nice bottles of wine. And this time of the year is when I seem to go through the most bottles of wine for those purposes. Having limited time to shop makes it hard to find the right wine. I tried the wine magazines and speciality stores, but I was not always happy with their choices. I was in Napa with some girlfriends last spring and we went to the Vintner's Collective.  We met the Tasting Room Manager, Andy Renda, who took us upstairs to the private tasting room. For the first time, I enjoyed every wine we tasted. Then I took friends of mine there, that live in Santa Rosa and have exposure to lots of wineries, and they loved all the wines. So I finally have my "get it right" wines. Which is important, because when a mom has a chance to sit down and have a glass of wine it should be an enjoyable experience.

Here is a list of top ten holiday gifts just in case you did forget someone on your list. My current  favorites are Ancien, Mi Sueno, and Showket. If you are a fan of Michael Chiarello's shows, Vintner's Collective also carrys his wines. If you can't get any babysitting to go to Napa, the wine club delivers wine to your door 5 times a year. If you are in a hurry, select local stores carry some of the wines.

Any other suggestions for wines to serve when entertaining or as gifts?

Thanksgiving recipes for busy moms

When I'm on the treadmill at the gym, I love watching the Food Network.  These past 2 weeks, they have unleashed a slew of Thanksgiving specials -- every other show is about turkey.  I've gotten some yummy recipes and tips from Rachael Ray (fresh herbs in the cavity), Sandra Lee (butter under and over the skin) and Paula Deen (deep fry it, y'all!).  Seeing all those beautifully plated dishes makes me want to create some culinary masterpieces of my own.  Unfortunately, it's not my turn to do the turkey -- I'm in charge of appetizers this year.  And in any case, I'm severely limited by my lack of time and ability.  And my kids' picky palates.  So I turned my efforts to making some appetizers that look good on a plate and are easy to make.  Here are two dishes that I threw together this week.  So far, all the grownups and kids who have tasted them love them.  They can be made a day ahead and warmed in the oven on Thanksgiving Day.  Since it's the season of sharing, I thought I'd share these recipes with you (note:  I'm an "eyeball it" kind of cook, there are no measurements.  Besides, measuring cups and spoons are just more work to wash).  Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Turkey Quesadillas
My daughter's kindergarten class had a Thanksgiving lunch yesterday.  I signed up for mini-quiche, which I had previously bought from Safeway.  But somehow she got it into her head that I was bringing a whole roasted turkey, and she began bragging to the whole class about it (kindergarten logic -- it can't be a Thanksgiving feast without turkey, right?).  When I gently told her that I was not prepared to roast a turkey and reminded her that she didn't like turkey anyway , her face fell.   So I decided to combine turkey slices with one of my kids' favorite lunches, cheese quesadillas.  I cut them up into small triangles so they became bite-sized appetizers.  That way, Natalie got her turkey and I got my easy-to-prepare dish.  Actually, I caved in and bought a roasted turkey breast from Safeway as well; I couldn't bear to see her sad little face.  Ahh, the things we do for our children.

Recipe:
Sprinkle grated cheese over a whole wheat tortilla.  Top with a slice of turkey or turkey ham.  Microwave for 40 seconds or until the cheese melts.  Fold the tortilla in half and smoosh hard.  When cool, cut into triangles.

Mini Beef Empanadas
My husband is having a multicultural Thanksgiving potluck at work today. Everyone is sharing a dish that reflects their cultural heritage, so I decided to make some beef empanadas for him.  I figured they represent both of our cultures since Filipinos eat these all the time, and they are quite similar to the English beef pasty.  I decided to make them smaller than usual, bite sized, so that everyone in the office gets to have a piece and still have enough room in their tummies to sample other goodies.

Filling Recipe: 
Sautee minced onions until soft, then add lean ground beef.  Add some soy sauce and some cream of tomato soup and seasoning to taste.  Add raisins and finely cubed boiled potatoes.  Simmer till all the liquid is gone.

Crust Recipe: 
Buy a box of refrigerated piecrusts(2 per box).  Roll out the dough until the diameter is approx. 4 inches wider than the original circle. Cut the dough into 12-16 rectangles.  Place 1 small teaspoon of filling into a dough square. Fold the dough over and pinch the edges together.  Crimp the edges with a fork and prick some holes onto the top.  When you have made all the mini pies, brush the tops with some beaten egg.  Place them on an oiled baking sheet and bake at 350 for approx. 15 minutes.

Of course, if all else fails, buy some Nancy's Petite Quiche and heat them up.  Place a tiny dollop of sour cream on each, and sprinkle with chopped chives.  Then pretend you made the whole thing.

My personal Mecca

I found an oasis yesterday.  A true oasis - a place to have a drink of water in the hot, hot desert.  And it wasn't a mirage.  It was the best drink of water I ever had.  When I finished, I thought to myself, why had no one ever told me of the oasis before?

The oasis was Fresh Choice.  My drink of water was a healthy meal that my toddler would eat.  The hot desert is my life during the week while I work full-time and try to balance making a fresh healthy dinner for our family. 

My dad suggested that we stop in there while on a trip to San Jose.  It was dinner time, D was getting cranky, and we both vetoed every other restaurant suggestion.  As we drove by the Fresh Choice, it looked good.  I'll admit that I haven't been in one since I was a teenager, but the idea of having a salad and soup on a rainy night sounded good.  We parked and walked inside.  And I was shocked.  In a good way.  Almost every table had children.  Children under the age of 8.  There were a couple of kids running around, even one toddler throwing a tantrum - and NOT A SINGLE table was making a dirty face about it.  It was loud with children's voices.  Three years ago this would have been my nightmare.  Now it was my Mecca.  I found the Holy Land for the frazzled working parent.

As we walked quickly through the salad bar, D was eating the cold pasta salad and black olives that I put on his plate.  He even tried some asian chicken salad and ate jicama strips.   When we went to pay, I noticed that kids under three are free (score!) and that kids over 3 costs only a couple of bucks.  Plus we didn't have to wait for the meal to be served, didn't have to bribe our server with a large(r) tip to rush D's dinner.  We already had our meal.  And it was made to order.  Literally.

My favorite part?  D trying new things and saying over and over " I yike [read: like] it, Momma.  I yike it."  When you have a picky kid that eats the same twelve things over and over; well, those words are better than anything.  Yes, there is nothing gourmet about Fresh Choice.  But we are not a gourmet family.  Our dinners at home are family meals with chicken and pasta and salad - the same kind of meals that I had growing up.  Serving lobster or "high end" olives doesn't make me a better mom or a better person.  Getting my kid to eat anything more than strawberries is good for me.

We don't live close to a Fresh Choice to dine there frequently (some of those kids knew there way around there pretty well, if you know what I mean).  And I do pride myself on making a home-cooked meal 5 nights a week (with the other nights usually being a family members house with a home cooked meal).  But to know that a place like that exists, well it just makes me happy.      

Bloody Eyeballs, Not Only for Crafty Moms

Crafty moms are the one you want as your child's room parent, on your child's sport teams, in girl scout or boy scout troops, as a neighbor or friend who entertains and invites you over for holidays. When I had one child, I attempted to become a crafty mom. And I pulled it off for some party events, but it was painful. And I found out it does not come easily for me. I blame it on the fact that I must be left brained; I would rather write program code then bake a cake from scratch. Now I have three boys and my current excuse is that they keep me too busy to cook things from scratch. So I have come to embrace it, but sometimes I digress.

My older son asked me in the beginning of this school year if I was going to volunteer in his class. He  said I never did that in the past and he felt bad about that (major mom guilt). When he was young I worked part-time, then I had twins and was too busy taking care of them to spend time in his class. So I volunteered to do anything that I could do after my kids went to sleep which usually included creating word documents or spreadsheets for his class or other school committees. Now my twins are in preschool every morning, so I finally have my chance to volunteer in his class.

At first I fell back on my old habits, asking if I could improve communication processes with spreadsheets and email communications. It was almost as if I was not comfortable with face to face meetings or phone calls. My blackberry had propelled me into an unrealistic world where email communications were sent right to my phone; so who needed to make a real phone call? I realized that the rest of the class preferred phone communication with email follow-up. So I scrambled to find something else I could contribute. Then came the Halloween party. I decided it was time to play crafty mom. But due to a sick kid, I did not have time to go to the store until the night before the Halloween party. And I wanted to do something with eggs to give the kids some protein before their night of candy.

It was 9:30pm at night when I finally arrived at Safeway to get the finishing touches for the Halloween egg craft. I had left my husband at home to boil 26 eggs. I had "craft block" and could not decide what to do with the eggs. I could not find anything that was hairy, black and edible to make spider eggs, pretzels were not good enough. I decided to call my one of my friends who is a real crafty mom. She was on her way home from a meeting, and of course had a Halloween entertaining book on the seat next to her. She pulled over and read through the pages until she found "egg eyeballs". I knew that was it, I was going to prepare egg eyeballs. After the 26 eggs were peeled, yolks deviled, pimento olive placed in, and red food dye spread around I had my crafty Halloween bloody eyeballs prepared. I was shocked because it was not as hard as I thought.

All the kids at my son's Halloween party said "eeewww" or "grossss" when they saw the bloody eyeball eggs, which made my son proud. But at the end of the party, there was only a few left. Some of the parents came up to me afterwords and asked if the eggs were hard to prepare, and I said that they were easy. Maybe even I could be a part-time crafty mom.

A Halloween birthday kid

I look longingly at those magazine covers with the artfully decorated (I am a watercolor painter) cookies that you can "easily make!" for "your Halloween event." Why the longing? Not because I am a Martha Stewart type-in fact I am the opposite-it is because I made them long ago for N's birthday .
You see, 15 years ago he entered the world. It was confusing emerging from childbirth to see the hospital staff dressed as vampires and witches. Please tell me that this was only the anesthesia and I was alive! Wait a sec, it was Halloween! (This is actually true..weird to wake up to everyone in costume saying "are you ok?"

It was fun when N was little and I could dictate the tone of his parties-it was easy. Never having the opportunity to celebrate on his real birthday, we would always pick a weekend before or after and the little princesses and ghouls would descend on our house for a toddler costume birthday party. Then, indulging the inner cookie Picasso, I would follow the "Fun and Easy!" instructions in making sugar piped skeletons on graham crackers and spider cupcakes with licorice legs. Never one to indulge in such domestic bliss, I took pictures of my work. Hmmm. maybe one day I will get real daring and actually use matching place mats. O never mind.

Flash forward to now..

N wants to do his own thing with friends and we cannot eat wheat. Rice flour pumpkin cookies? I suppose I can try. Now..about those placemats..

Candy: To Throw, or Not to Throw?

True or False:
Halloween candy is bad for ghosts, goblins, kids and adults...
Halloween candy turns kids into monsters...

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Believe it or not, the National Confectioner's Association claims that these statements are false!  Citing research on the health benefits of chocolate and some studies on cholesterol and hyperactivity, this organization has somehow come up with the outrageous statements above.  Who are they kidding?  We moms know better, both from our own experience and from the research of nutritionists like Alix. 

So the question is, what do we do with all the candy our little ones bring home on Halloween?  Even if I give my kids a once-a-year treat and let them gorge on candy on Halloween night, we still end up with 3 plastic pumpkins half-full of candy.  Either the candy will get eaten or thrown away.  In an effort to avoid throwing the candy away (what about the starving kids in Africa?), I present a list of ways to spread the candy consumption over as many people as possible:

How to Reuse-and-Recycle Halloween Candy:

10) Donate the candies.  In the Philippines we used to visit an orphanage just 10 minutes away from our home and give them to the kids there.  I don't know of any orphanages in the Bay Area, but there are organizations out there that will distribute candy to children for whom candy really is a special treat.  For example, Samaritan's Purse "Operation Christmas Child" ships shoe boxes to children across the world. Any non-chocolate candy can be donated to help fill those shoe boxes.

9) Send the candies with your husband to his office.

8) Take the candies to your office/gym/preschool teachers' lounge.

7) If one of your kids is having a birthday party anytime soon, save the candies to stuff the birthday pinata with.  Ignore the evil looks from the other parents at your birthday party and pretend you bought one of those pinata filler bags ("I can't believe they put so much candy in these things!!").

6) Save the candies to make your own pinata filler bags and sell them on Ebay. 

5) Save the candies to decorate a gingerbread house in December (what to do with the candy-laden gingerbread house?  I'll worry about that later).

4) Save the hard candies to make stained-glass Christmas cookies that you can give away as presents or hostess gifts, or take to one of your numerous cookie exchanges and Christmas parties.

3) Save the hard candies to make stained-glass Christmas ornaments that you can use to trim your tree or decorate your mantelpiece or fashion napkin rings out of.  I have no idea how to do this, or if it is even possible.  Perhaps Martha Stewart has done it.  I haven't -- hey, it was just a thought.

2) Eat the candies yourself.  Well, maybe not all the candies, just the good ones.  You know, the ones you steer your 2-year old towards (i.e. anything chocolate) when he's trick-or-treating and his hand hovers over the boiled sweets.  As for the rest of the candies, see items 10 thru 3.

1) OK, I give up.  Just throw the rest away.  Let the racoons have a Happy Halloween as well.

Sugar Sugar

There's nothing like a nutritionist to take all the fun out of Halloween, huh? We try to avoid sugar in our house, so I'm dreading Halloween. But, hear me out on why we avoid it, and maybe you'll join me in eliminating a little more sugar from your kids' diets.

My kids rarely get sick. In fact, my 4.5 year old son has never missed a day of pre-school and he's been in day care/preschool for 3 full days a week for 2.5 years. When he does get ill, it's very mild and only once can I remember him having a very high fever and being listless. He has a twin sister, who gets sick a bit more than he does and slightly worse, but even she has only missed 3 days of school in that same amount of time. She also has major digestive issues -- her documented leaky gut is likely contributing to a bigger viral load in her bloodstream. My kids have each thrown up maybe 5 times in their lives. Only once was that due to illness. The other times were car sickness and a severe food allergy to eggs in my daughter.

What does any of this have to do with sugar? Surely, the diet we eat in this house has something to do with my kids' health. The basic tenet is that it be nutrient-dense. Sugar does not fit that bill. It is an anti-nutrient. Sugar depresses the immune system. I can tell you that if my kids gorge themselves on candy (and I do let them at Halloween, last Easter, their birthday, etc.), they will get sick within a few days of a major sugar binge. A little bday cake does not have this effect, thankfully!

Now, as a researcher, I also know that my kids are only two data points among millions of kids and that does not make a trend or even touch on being statistically significant. But, somewhere between an educated guess and mother's intuition, I know it's due to their diet.

Here's a bit of evidence. Immune suppression is not the only problem with sugar. Here are the 76 Dangers of Sugar Consumption from Mercola.co